The Bastard
by alcyonejonquil
Summary: "How can you not just sit and wonder, sometimes, why anyone even bothers having children?" (Headcanon. A glimpse into the mind of Silvia, Illia's mother.)


How can you not just sit and wonder, sometimes, why anyone even bothers having children?

Well, _why_ is a bit of a foolish thing to ask. Oh, one _does_ bother, especially when they're young and gullible and still pretty fucking ordinary, which, am I wrong, means being more or less ruled by the risible, witless demands of the physical. Of the _arse._ "Everything's fine and dandy 'till you get the arse involved," dear grandpa delicately used to say, and damn if those weren't the wisest words to ever leave that doddering old wizard's mouth. When you're nice and fresh-faced and pleasantly plump and you stroll through town with lads leaning on their porches throwing you keen glances and you only deign to use the endless life-force that is Magicka to try to impress other fools like you. For _party tricks_.

If I may, respectfully, be allowed to barf.

It doesn't seem like such a bad idea at the time, does it? Your sister's gotten married ages ago, happily moved to Riften (squandering any hope of taking her arcane studies further, but who cares; not her, obviously, the stupid bint). The girls at the stream, when you do the laundry, keep droning on and on about matters of the aforementioned body part and the various annexes thereof—surely no one can blame you for being a little intrigued.

The boy who's been staring at you the hardest is not awful-looking. On the contrary. A pig, like all the rest, but a handsome pig. Hair like fire. Lovely stuff.

It's fairly simple to lie together in the warm hay one evening. The risks are low, you've taken every precaution; and even if, by sheer bad luck, he knocks you up, would it really be a tragedy? Most everyone has to start a family at some point, you're bound to do so yourself, get an amulet of Mara 'round your neck. What's a few years too early?

A lot, as it turns out. A few years is a lot, when the pig is a heartless pig, and he's the Elder's favourite nephew. When he suddenly decides he's never spoken to you in his life.

Ah, the disgrace, the venom. Villagers halting in their tracks as you pass, pointing at you with glee. They drive you out of your childhood home, all the way to your sister's place, and when the time comes for the embarrassment to crawl out into the world, no one apart from the priestesses tending to you would even guess what was going on. You stay perfectly quiet, denying them all even the smallest trace of satisfaction at hearing you suffer.

Your last remaining relative drops dead soon after Illia's fourth birthday. You're left with barely two septims to scrape together, Riften's getting more and more dangerous by the day, so you take off to the south, towards the border. The girl's bare feet are red and raw, she's crying incessantly, forcing you to switch between carrying her and letting her back down to rest your poor bones every few minutes.

Then you come across it: the Tower. And you remind yourself to thank the Eight for the magical streak that runs in your family. The situation's not ideal...but neither are you going to be fussy about it.

You demonstrate some of what you know; the Hagravens cluck sceptically at the feeble flurry of sparks, their eyes lingering on the extra mouth to feed gripping at your skirt.

You're both granted entry after an hour of back-and-forth. Feeling the bile rise in your throat, unable to cease your mad trembling, you make your way to the cupboard where the child's found a cot to rest on. You kneel, barely aware of your arms clutching her almost convulsively. You take in her round cheeks and wild curls and the way her narrow chest rises and falls with every breath. Then, suddenly, you find you can see the blue flecks of aetherial light dotting her long eyelashes like raindrops, and you think "Yes. This will do. She'll be good. She'll be _good_. She'll be the _best._"

You certainly do your damnedest to make her the best. You and your new sisters take turns in showing her how to focus, how to channel and transform what's singing through her veins and marrow and sinews into palpable energy. You stumble a bit sometimes, make mistakes, but, under the leaders' attentive gaze, your abilities blossom, and the girl's blossom ten times as much. Kids need to play more than they need air, after all, and it's all still a game to her. Not as if there were a plethora of things to entertain herself with in this place.

There is some measure of wonder, you have to admit, in seeing your mannerisms, the expressions you use, replicated so faithfully in this minute person...

Who's eventually not so minute anymore, refuses to stop growing even when that makes things entirely more difficult.

All right, you pop out a tot (or two, or three), it's fine. The thing is, they get older, and they begin to hate you. Where they might have once hung onto your every word, been all "mama this" and "mama that," their mind now grants them new and _exciting_ powers. The power to submit to some misguided sense of justice or pity or other such bunkum—that you swear doesn't come from you, has nothing to do with the way you raised them.

As if that were how the world truly worked. Freedom and kindness and laughter and games. As if those would ever do her any good. As if she weren't destined for so much more: for transcendence, the glory of the hidden magicks all in the coven strive to master. Things a mere mortal has no chance of even getting a glimpse of.

You must make her understand. Her eyes are glassy when she peers at the bound, bloody subjects you bring in for your training, putting an end to those foolish impulses is, therefore, critical. Oh, but she's sensitive, and spiteful, and self-absorbed. Starts talking back at you, at the other women; nothing escapes her _sapient_ questioning. You're being pulled to a corner and told some variation of "Control your bastard, Silvia, or else!" slightly more often than you'd like.

Do kids have to grow up?

Or, even better, did you really deserve to be burdened with a kid who despises you, undermines you at every turn? If there's one mercy from the Gods you've yearned for in all your miserable years...

No, it would've been easy. Nothing's supposed to be that sodding easy.

"Why do people bother having children?" you're compelled to ask again. Why, indeed, when, next thing you know, as you're finally, _finally_ so close to transcendence you can almost taste it, your daughter, now a woman in her own right, is standing behind you with her palms glowing, poised to strike, lips spewing something as inane as "I can't let you do this, mother," and you're left just a tad confounded at the immediate questions that pop into your head:

Whether you ought to feel something other than the same old disappointment, maybe...maybe something shaking loose and falling apart inside of you, _anything_.

Whether the fact you _don't_ is likely to be a cause for concern.

It's silly, of course. You already know the answers well enough.

* * *

**I seem to be on a bit of a roll with these parents' backstories, I swear. It's slightly odd.**

**This was written for the r/FanFiction Prompts Challenge #15 - specifically, fulfilling the prompt "Second Person POV".**


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